The road to Utopia is the road to Hell. — Communism and socialism are the opiates of the intelligentsia. — The left, in its eternal and futile quest for "equality", is more than willing to abolish liberty and sunder fraternity.

Menu

Tag Archives: The Big Sort

Since the inauguration of Politics & Prosperity on February 8, 2009,* I’ve rarely indulged in ruminations about personal matters. But I will now, in response to the lead editorial in the Austin American-Statesman of March 26, 2014 (subscription required). It says, in part:

Just two weeks after a fatal wreck during the South by Southwest Music Festival killed three attendees, the city of Austin is taking steps to set a safer stage for the upcoming Texas Relays, the first major event weekend since the tragedy….

Just five years ago, the event, which draws 45,000 athletes and fans to the city and boosts the economy with more than $8 million, was greeted with protests and charges of racism in the city’s treatment of its predominately African-American guests.

“In the past, we have not always been welcoming this event to the city in light of the positive impact it has, especially on tourism,” said Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole [a black].

The weekend activities around the two events have been known to put extra stress on Highland Mall, which becomes the center of social networking for 20,000 teenagers and young people, mostly African-Americans. The mall parking lot and other spots around town become ideal hangouts for the young crowds to mingle and show off cars. And as in most cases with large crowds at any type of gathering, there will be small-scale trouble.

But in 2009, the city of Austin “prepared” for the weekend by closing off several exit ramps onto Sixth Street. Some downtown businesses closed for the weekend. And Highland Mall chose to close its doors early on that particular Saturday.

While merchants and the city said closure decisions were about safety and not race, the combination sent the wrong message….

During this weekend of events, Cole said she hopes the city can experience the vibrancy of youth and diversity as well as enjoy the sheer fun of track and field.

As a resident of Austin who is frequently irritated by the doings of the city’s officials, I must object.

The shutdown of Highland Mall and downtown stores sent the wrong message? Baloney. It sent a message that the lefties who dominate Austin’s politics simply don’t want to acknowledge. The owners of Highland Mall and downtown stores had had enough of rowdiness, and didn’t find the economic “boost” (if any) sufficiently offsetting. That was the message, which Austin’s “leaders” choose to ignore, in their (usual) eagerness to promote political correctness, growth, and tourism — despite the hardships and higher taxes imposed on residents.

Instead of dealing in facts, Ms. Cole invokes “vibrancy of youth” and “diversity,” as if these dubious qualities will somehow permeate Austin’s atmosphere and make all of its citizens feel good. Why not just spew balloons and nitrous oxide into the air? Or better yet, evict all of the recent arrivals (post July 2003, say) and spend some money on fixing Austin’s streets instead of continuing to convert them to (little used) bike lanes.

Heaven forbid that private parties act in their own interest by closing stores against invading hordes of riff-raff. Austin’s “leaders” will have none of it, in their zeal to be politically correct. It’s a zeal that encompasses not only an embarrassing degree of racial, ethnic, and sexual-orientation pandering, but also “greenness” at almost any price. This latter zeal encompasses the aforementioned bike lanes, costly “green” electricity, costly energy inspection mandates, a money-losing recycling plan that continues to grow, buses and rail cars that run empty most of the day and night, and on and on.

Austin is far from unique in being saddled with a heavy-handed, left-minded government. The dictatorial mindset is epidemic, spanning as it does almost every city of any size, most States, and a central government that imposes draconian policies to which the “leaders” of too many cities and States eagerly conform.

Barring an electoral revolution, or something more drastic, how can liberty-loving Americans arrange to live among and be governed by others of like mind? Arranging a libertarian homeland would be a tall order — nigh unto impossible, you might think (as I do). But human nature may yet prevail over planning, as it often does. (Witness the likely failure of Obamacare to coerce sufficient numbers of healthy young persons to buy health insurance.)

One hopeful trend is the continued geographic sorting of Americans, which means that those who seek liberty are more likely to find it in the municipalities and States to which they are drawn. As I have noted,

evidence of ideological sorting along geographic lines is seen in electoral maps of the 1976 and 2012 presidential elections, where the popular-vote splits were almost identical in favor of the respective Democrat candidates, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. Ignoring the favorite-son effect that swung the South to Carter and Michigan to Ford in 1976, one can see rather striking differences between 1976 and 2012; for example: the Northeast has become much more heavily Democrat since 1976; the Left Coast is no longer close, and is now solidly Democrat; except for Colorado, the States of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains have become more strongly Republican.

Geographic sorting is reinforced by assortative mating: like prefers like. This is from the abstract of a paper by Casey A. Klofstad, Rose McDermott, and Peter K. Hatemi, “The Dating Preferences of Liberals and Conservatives” (Springer Science+Business Media, July 2012):

American politics has become more polarized. The source of the phenomena [sic] is debated. We posit that human mate choice may play a role in the process. Spouses are highly correlated in their political preferences, and research in behavioral genetics, neuroscience, and endocrinology shows that political preferences develop through a complex interaction of social upbringing, life experience, immediate circumstance, and genes and hormones, operating through one’s psychological architecture…. Consequently, if people with similar political values produce children, there will be more individuals at the ideological extremes over generations….. Using a sample of Internet dating profiles we find that both liberals and conservatives seek to date individuals who are like themselves. This result suggests a pathway by which longterm couples come to share political preferences, which in turn could be fueling the widening ideological gap in the United States.

There’s much more about assortative mating in these posts, papers, and articles:

It therefore seems likely that geographic sorting will result in more ideological, ethnic, and cultural homogeneity across large regions. This will be true not only of those areas that attract right-libertarians and conservatives, but also of those areas that retain well-to-do (mainly white) big-government “liberals.” (Austin has become one such area.) Those “liberals” will, of course, be surrounded by the minorities that they champion. (As they are in Austin.) But, as usual, they will reside mainly in pricy, white-dominated enclaves and often send their children to private schools. They will nevertheless pat themselves on the back for their embrace of “diversity.” But few of them will actually experience it, except to the extent that they employ Hispanic maids, nannies, and gardeners and occasionally encounter a black who is employed in some menial capacity.

In short, “diversity” is doomed, as a practical matter. And it’s a good thing, as I discuss at length here.

As for myself, I have now lived in Blue States and municipalities for most of my life. Austin is just the latest stop, though it is has proved to be the least bearable one. I’m looking forward to the day — perhaps in a few years — when I can join the Big Sort.

Comments & Correspondence

Comments close 30 days after the publication of a post. If a post is no longer open for comment, or if you prefer to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google’s e-mail service — all run together.

If you submit a comment or suggestion by e-mail, I may acknowledge it or use it on this blog. But I may paraphrase what you say or edit it for the sake of concision, clarity, coherence, or brevity. I will not use your name unless you specifically authorize me to do so. Even then, I will put quotation marks around your name unless I am certain of your identity.

On Liberty and Libertarianism

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity. The governments in and of the United States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but most Americans are captives in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Who can restore liberty? Certainly not the self-proclaimed libertarians who are fixated on Mill's empty harm principle and align with the left on social norms. Traditional (i.e., Burkean) conservatism fosters the preservation and adherence of beneficial norms (e.g., the last six of the Ten Commandments). Thus, by necessity, the only true libertarianism is found in traditional conservatism. I am a traditional conservative, which makes me a libertarian -- a true one.

Notes about Usage

“State” (with a capital “S”) refers to one of the United States, and “States” refers to two or more of them. “State” and “States,” thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word “state” for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a “marriage” (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

The words “liberal”, “progressive”, and their variants are usually enclosed in quotation marks (sneer quotes) because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress. I sometimes italicize the words, just to reduce visual clutter.

I have reverted to the British style of punctuating in-line quotations, which I followed 40 years ago when I published a weekly newspaper. The British style is to enclose within quotation marks only (a) the punctuation that appears in quoted text or (b) the title of a work (e.g., a blog post) that is usually placed within quotation marks.

I have reverted because of the confusion and unsightliness caused by the American style. It calls for the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks, even if the periods and commas don’t occur in the quoted material or title. Also, if there is a question mark at the end of quoted material, it replaces the comma or period that might otherwise be placed there.

If I had continued to follow American style, I would have ended a sentence in a recent post with this:

What a hodge-podge. There’s no comma between the first two entries, and the sentence ends with an inappropriate question mark. With two titles ending in question marks, there was no way for me to avoid a series in which a comma is lacking. I could have avoided the sentence-ending question mark by recasting the list, but the items are listed chronologically, which is how they should be read.

This not only eliminates the hodge-podge, but is also more logical and accurate. All items are separated by commas, commas aren’t displaced by question marks, and the declarative sentence ends with a period instead of a question mark.